online home of Clay Williams, Blogger, Photographer, Geek.

October 24, 2012

Lima: The Tasting Menu at Astrid y Gaston

Since we're going back to South America, I've decided to go back to some of the stories I forgot to tell about last year's trip.

Last year, as soon as we decided to spend time in Lima while in Peru, I began hearing about all the food options. And at the center of any food conversation about Lima is Gaston Acuria. The defining chef of Peru, Acuria's flagship restaurant is Astrid y Gaston, which happened to be just a couple blocks from the apartment in Miraflores where we stayed.

On our first night in town, we showed up at their door and managed to get dinner at the bar, where we ordered the tasting menu. A few hours and twelve courses later, we
Finished one of the best meals I've had... Pretty much ever. I won't claim to remember exactly what every course was 7 months later, but you can see a good deal of it after the jump.

October 17, 2012

Heading South

This may seem like deja vu, but a month from now, Tammi and I are going back to South America. This trip, like our trip last year, starts in Peru, then takes us to Argentina.

We start in Lima, continue to Argentinian wine country in Mendoza, then finish with a week in Buenos Aires. It may seem like a bit of a rerun, but last year was so great that waiting another five years for a return visit seemed foolish.

I'm in ful on obsessive mode planning and researching places to visit, eat and drink, so stay tuned for links and reminiscing from last year's trip.

October 10, 2012

OHNY: Walking The High Line, Section 3

It's Open House New York time in NYC again. You may remember my trip last year to the old TWA Terminal at JFK. I mostly shot that with film for my analog series.

This year, Tammi got us on the OHNY list for a walk through the undeveloped section of The High Line. The area from 30th to 34th Street wraps around the Hudson Yards, which will also be developed in the next few years.

October 3, 2012

Faces of Atlantic Antic 2012

Labor Day and the Equinox may ring in Fall for most, but summer doesn't end for me until Atlantic Antic. I've gushed about the mile-long street festival before. I've been going since I was a kid and it always seems like the entirety of Brooklyn is out based both on the crowds and the numer of friends and acquaintances we end up running into along the way.

I take my camera with me every year, but this time I chose to focus on the people who were out and about on Sunday. See the faces of Brooklyn's biggest street fair after the jump.

July 25, 2012

Montreal: Plateau Mont Royal

I've been a fan of Montreal since my first trip there a decade ago. That time, I made the mistake of going in November - which is really winter there. I got there just in time for a two day snowstorm that left a couple feet of accumulation on the ground. Lesson learned, I made a point of going earlier in the year on subsequent trips, but I never made it there during the summer.

Going in June this time, I got the brand new experience of being immersed in crowds of Montrealers walking through the street festivals and block parties that make up for all the forced indoor time from November to April.

July 11, 2012

Montreal: Birthday Dinner at Joe Beef

The culinary highpoint in a trip full of amazing food has to be the dinner Tammi and I had on my birthday at Joe Beef. A month after our trip to Montreal, I'm still drooling over the extreme and delicious meal we had there.

Rather than attempt to narrate the meal, I'm just going to give a visual recap of the spectacle after the jump. Enjoy!

June 27, 2012

Montreal: Dinner at Au Pied du Cochon

I wasn't messing around when I planned out our recent trip to Montreal. From a month before, I made reservations for our first night at the legendary Au Pied du Cochon. No relation to the Parisian home of cheesy onion soup and pork spread, the Montreal restaurant is often seen as the flagship for Quebec's special brand of rich, hearty, foie gras-laden cuisine.

It's where Hugue Dufour of M Wells got his start and has, until recently, been THE destination restaurant in Montreal. These days, Joe Beef probably puts up a pretty good fight for that title, but more on that later.

June 20, 2012

Food/Work: Edible Brooklyn Feature

As part of my Food/Work project, I found myself exploring the halls of a couple commercial kitchens around Brooklyn. This month, many of the photos from these excursions have made it into a feature in the pages of Edible Brooklyn.

The article, written by Amy Cortese, discusses how the rise of small batch, artisanal foods has created a new niche market for the specialized cooking space required to produce all those cupcakes, cookies, granola and saltwater taffy.

After the jump, check out some photos from the kitchens at Hana Pastries in Sunset Park.

June 13, 2012

O Canada: A Birthday Trip to Montreal

To celebrate my 35th Birthday, Tammi and I just spent a long weekend in Montreal. I've been a longtime fan of the city, but Tammi had never been. We spent five days partaking in all sorts of deliciousness. Much of this has already been documented via Twitter and Instagram, but rest assured there's more to come.

May 21, 2012

The Narrative Process - My Tech Munch Presentation

Last Friday, I took part in a panel for the TechMunch Conference, a food blogger gathering, to discuss the narrative process. In it, Tricia Okin led a discussion with me, Liza de Guia of Food. Curated. And Kasey Hickey of Evernote Food about how each of us comes to the stories we publish.

May 16, 2012

Queens: A Roosevelt Avenue Street Food Tour

I don't get out to Queens much. In fact, besides going to the airports, I mostly like to avoid the borough as a whole. That said, I've been hearing great things about the great food there for years. Last year, the lore took me out to M Wells - twice. Last weekend, it took me to Roosevelt Avenue, where I grazed my way down thirty blocks with my fellow Midtown Lunch contributors, Donny (of Eat To Blog) and Siobhan (of Blondie & Brownie).

The trip wasn't entirely for leisure, though. Siobhan and her blogging partner Alex are writing a street food cookbook and Donny and I will be providing some of the photography. So, you know, it's research. Leading us through this unfamiliar territory was Jeff Orlick, aka JeffreyTastes, who runs regular tours of the area.

I hope to write a few posts about some of the specific places we visited, but who knows when I'll have time for that, so let's start with the highlights - after the jump.

May 9, 2012

Self-Promotion: My NoMad Photos in Travel + Leisure

In my years as Flatiron Lunch correspondent for Midtown Lunch, I spent a lot of time in the area that's now being called NoMad. While covering the area, it grew from being a dead zone to being one of the more interesting areas to eat these days. Travel + Leisure magazine agrees - this month's Food Issue includes a piece highlighting a number of the places to eat in the neighborhood and two of my photos are used to illustrate them.

May 2, 2012

Your First Look at The Bar at Peaches

Last night, Bed-Stuy got its newest bar. The folks at Peaches have renovated the space where Bread-Stuy used to be and turned it into a bar for folks in the neighborhood to hang out, chat and enjoy each other's company. It's a much needed addition to the neighborhood and I'm looking forward to spending long evenings bending elbows at the bar or holed up in a window seat on a summer's day.

Before they opened, owners Craig & Ben let me in to get a first look at the place. They're also our first confirmed stop on the next Bed-Stuy Crawl, which will tour Lewis Avenue on Saturday, June 2nd.

April 25, 2012

Mexico-Bound

Next week, Tammi and I are heading to Tulum, Mexico for the wedding of some good friends of ours. I'm not one to get excited about spending time in beach towns, but I had a great eating experience in Mexico City years ago and I've been hearing people talk about Tulum for a little while now. Of course, I don't have much in the way of specifics about where to go or what to eat while there, so let me know if you have any tips!

April 17, 2012

Bed-Stuy Crawl, Round 2 Recap

Last weekend's Bed-Stuy Crawl was an amazing success. Alisha, Nicole and I led a crowd of nearly 50 people to sip and snack at three spots in the Franklin/Bedford corner of the neighborhood. I told you all about the plan last week, so check out how it all went with photos after the jump.

April 16, 2012

Lima: Public Displays

In the park up above the Lima waterfront, this statue stands as a monument to the Peruvian proclivity for showing affection. Any doubts about how accurate this was was erased by a walk through the park. It was impossible not to pass at least one pair of entangled teens sucking face for all to see.

April 13, 2012

Lima: Dancing in Kennedy Park

Lima's Kennedy Park is a five minute walk from our apartment in Miraflores and chock full of activity from markets and events and locals just enjoying the space. Every time we walked through the park there was some sort of performance or dance party happening there.

April 12, 2012

Lima: Perpetual Cloud Cover

Having spent our first week or so in Peru up in the mountains, it was easy to forget that it was winter time down there. During the day, the sun shone and temperatures got to the 60s. When we landed in Lima, closer to sea level, we encountered an entirely new weather pattern. It wasn't the cold, snowy winter we (usually) know at home, but there was a chill in the air and we didn't see the sun at all over the four or five days we were there. At all.

We read that it's like that for most of the year, but it's remarkable being right on the coast of the Pacific with a huge cliffside park across from the beach going for miles and miles and not seeing the sun once. I can't imagine how gorgeous it must be on a sunny summer day.

April 11, 2012

This weekend, Bed-Stuy Crawl returns!

Having lived in Bed-Stuy since I was a kid, I have to say there hasn't been a more exciting time to live in the neighborhood. As recently as five years ago, the idea of being able to spend a Saturday evening out with friends without leaving the bounds of Bed-Stuy was pretty unlikely. Your options were to hang out at an old man bar or to spend the whole time at one of a handful of scattered restaurants around the area. That's all changed. And it's pretty great.

If you missed the first Bed-Stuy Crawl back in February, here's your chance to make it up to yourself. Last time, led a group of 40 from Fulton Grand on the Clinton Hill border to Breucklen Cellars, Vodou Lounge and finally Black Swan. It was an amazing time and we're doing it all over again this weekend. Check out the plan for this weekend's festivities after the jump.

April 9, 2012

Peru: Incan Constellations

One interesting thing I picked up from our visit to Qorikancha was that unlike the European astrology, which traces the stars to find deities, the Incan constellations find patterns in the darkness around the stars.

This representation of Incan Astrology was painted by Miguel Araoz Cartagena, a local artist in Cuzco. To read more about the constellations, read this.